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Act appointing the pursuer of the thief to have the goods stolen from him restored

Our sovereign lord, understanding that when thieves are taken and executed for theft or declared fugitives, their whole estate and the goods stolen also does fall to his majesty and to the lords of regalities and other justiciars pretending right to the said goods stolen; for remedy whereof his majesty, with advice and consent of the estates of parliament, statutes and ordains that any person having goods or gear stolen from him, and having pursued the stealer thereof, shall have his own goods again wherever the same can be apprehended and, where the stolen goods cannot be had, the pursuer of the thief shall have the just value of the goods and gear stolen from him out of the readiest of the thief's goods with the expenses expended by the pursuer, he always pursuing the thief until the sentence, reserving always to the sheriff or other magistrates and taker of the thief the expenses expended by them in the taking and putting of the thief to execution.